surrender to her embrace. She smells like fresh laundry. I take a whi, hoping it’s
discreet. Gimme that Snuggle sheet scent, Laura.
Laura pulls away and holds on to both of my forearms while looking me in
the eye, intimately. Everything about my interaction with Laura so far would
typically put me on the defensive, if Laura were anyone else. But Laura is Laura.
The regular rules don’t apply here.
“Let’s get started, shall we?” she asks with, I swear to God, a twinkle in her
eye. Yes, we shall, Laura. We. Shall.
I sit down opposite Laura in her little oce, which aesthetically resembles her
waiting room. My opener’s gone after being so disarmed by her.
She asks me what brings me in, and I tell her about the Steven ultimatum,
and how I love him and want things to work out between us, so I agreed to come
here.
“All right, well that’s ne. But therapy is a thing we have to decide to do. We
have to want to change, not for someone else, but for ourselves.” Laura takes a
long sip of tea. “So Jennette, do you want to change?”
“Yeah,” I say, knowing that even though there’s more nuance to it than this,
this is what I should say. It’s almost like Laura is the casting director and I’m the
child actor, trying to say exactly the thing that will earn me a callback. Yes, I can
swim. Yes, I can pogo stick. Yes, I want to change.
“Okay, good,” Laura says.
Laura asks me what I’m currently struggling with in life, why exactly Steven
suggested I come here, and I dive right in—Mom’s death, bulimia, alcohol issues,
the works. I try to give her the succinct elevator-pitch version. I gure we’ve got
more sessions to unpack the specics.
In her buttery voice, Laura gives me a rundown of how we’re going to work.
“I take a holistic approach to recovery, so our sessions will incorporate a lot of
variety. Today we’ll focus on a life wheel so that we can gauge where you’re
starting out and use this as a benchmark to track your progress over time.”
I nod along. No idea what a life wheel is, Laura, but let’s get it spinnin’.
“Over the next four months, we’ll go grocery shopping, cook together,
discover your hobbies and passions through experimentation, read a stack of
eating-disorder-specic books and take notes on what does and doesn’t resonate